Kimberly Hart's Dance Studio
by balletbaby
Summary: This is the sequel to The Power of Pink story. This is after-well, you've read it. This is how Kim decides to help out Molly, who for reference, is in 'our reality.'
1. Chapter 1

For anyone who has not read the first part of this story, go read Power of Pink. Go ahead, right now. I'll wait. ;p

"Molly!" Kimberly Hart screamed, just as Tommy Oliver, holding Molly Castor, callapsed to the floor.

"Oh Tommy!" Molly gasped, clinging to him. The blow to her face already showed signs of bruising, and her mouth was bleeding from hitting the side of the desk when she fell. "I didn't know what else to do! I couldn't fight them all! Please don't make me go back there," she cried, "Please! Oh, Tommy, I hate it! I hate it!" With that she began sobbing, and hid her face in his shoulder.

The other rangers ran across Billy's garage at the commotion.

"You see? You see why it's so bad for her to teach school now?" Zach's voice filled the room as he glared at everyone, anyone who had dared to doubt.

Once glance at Molly's injuries sent Kimberly racing inside to grab a first aid kit.

"Molly, what happened?"Trini's voice was soft.

"She got attacked." Tommy answered instead, his voice dripping with disgust and rage.

"If Zordon hadn't kept us from contacting her, this would have never happened.

At least we know it worked." Billy answered.

Jason waved his hands to stop the discussion. He knelt down next to Tommy and Molly, just looking at her, saying nothing.

"Teaching school?" He asked, his eyebrows raised, forehead wrinkled in concern.

Molly nodded, her face still hidden, and clung tighter to Tommy at the mention of the word school- as if they'd take her back there at any moment.

"So, how were you able to get to her?" Zack asked Tommy. " What did you do?"

"It wasn't me." He smiled at Molly, who couldn't see his face. "It was her."

"What?"

"That line of energy that we saw going up- it wasn't some of Rita's evil trying to get out. It was Molly, trying to get in contact with us herself."

"You're joking."

"Zordon admitted that she had a power," Kim spoke up, returning to Molly's side, cleaning and bandaging her face without further comment about how that happened to her face in the first place.

"It was her," Tommy repeated. "Somehow she has a way to call out to us, but in addition to that, she has the power to bring people from other realities into her own. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to help her out of that fight. Those students would have killed her. I was practicing, and I thought I heard a scream, and then, I was in the classroom, in my ghee, and the kids were attacking her."

"You brought us to you," Trini muttered in amazement, addressing Molly.

"It must have been a recent development," Billy began, but Zack interrupted him.

"Otherwise we wouldn't have just known that things were going on when she taught school before- we would have been there. We would have been able to help her."

"Right," Jason nodded.

"No wonder Rita was after her." Kim was angry, still, but satisfied to know that they no longer needed Zordon to be able to communicate with Molly in her reality.

They glanced back at Molly, she'd fallen asleep in Tommy's arms.

********************************************************************

"All right. And tendu front, one…two- stretch your foot, and hold three…four. Relax your toes and draw the leg back-in." She said the words with the same timing as her counting, and the student obediently brought her leg back to her in the same fashion, the same counts as before. Then she stood there waiting for instruction.

Tommy smiled.

"_Kim, he called, "You have to see this."_

Molly lifted her head, extending her neck to demonstrate to her student the proud carriage of the head necessary for the next step. "Turn here, then tilt up- that's right," she nodded in approval.

Kim was at his side staring. She grinned widely. _"I've never seen her like this before- this is great!"_

"_She has no idea we're here. I wouldn't dare interrupt a teacher when they're teaching."_

Kim nodded silently, her eyes transfixed on Molly. _"This is amazing," she whispered. "Molly is like a totally different person here."_

Tommy shrugged. _"She's in her element."_

"_She's so…this is so right for her, Tommy! This is what she's meant to do."_ She stared at Molly with a mixture of awe and pride.

"And bring your arm out- keep the elbow up," she instructed. "Extend your leg forward, and hold."

As Molly's student froze in place, holding a position, Kim could no longer contain herself. She jumped up and down, clapping with glee._ "She's awesome! And this is just like gymnastics! I can totally remember my coaches talking to me that way, correcting me- things had to be perfect." _She smiled, continuing to watch as Molly and her student moved on to another exercise.

"_No,"_ Tommy corrected her, _"it's just like martial arts. I was watching her before- the girl can't and doesn't move unless Molly tells her to. That's what we do in martial arts all the time-that's how I train my students. They have to be perfectly still unless I tell them to move."_

Kim gave him a sidelong glance and giggled._ Somehow this doesn't remind me of the classes you teach Tommy." _She laughed again. _"Your classes are loud, you project your voice, your students are loud." _She shook her head. _"This isn't like that at all."_

"_It's just like it,"_ he insisted. _"I mean, it's different, but it's the same. It's the same thing."_

She shrugged. _"If you say so."_

Molly was poking the girl at the hip, then bending to the floor to manually move the foot. She smiled and joked with her student.

Kim gave a wry smile. _"Well, she's a lot nicer than my teachers were."_

Tommy's grin was wide. _"Yeah, she approaches it differently, but the results are the same."_

Kim nodded as though in a trance, watching Molly, and Tommy wasn't even sure she'd heard him.

The girl was practicing her splits in the middle of the room, while Molly was at the stereo changing a CD.

"_No, no!"_ Kim called out. She stepped forward to the student. _"Keep one hand to the floor on each side of your knee." _She was speaking to the girl, as if she could hear her.

The student stayed as she was, stretching with both hands on one side of her body, supporting the stretch.

"_Molly, stop her!"_ Kim cried. _"Your kid is messing up!"_

Tommy snorted with laughter. _"You'd never say something like that if you thought that girl could hear you."_

She shrugged as Molly turned her head back to her student. _"It's still true though."_

"No!" Molly exclaimed moving toward her student. Kim sighed in relief, the problem was to be rectified.

"This isn't gymnastics! Turn your back leg out- your knee never points to the floor in a split."

Kim's mouth dropped open. Then she pursed her lips and put her fists on her hips, offended. Tommy laughed aloud.

"_It's not funny."_

Tommy laughed again in answer.

Molly sighed, with a smile on her face. "And move those hands," she called out as she walked back to the stereo. "One hand on each side of your knee- not two hands on one side."

"_Thank you!"_ Kim raised her open hands upward in acknowledgement of her own correction.

"_Maybe you should teach a class of your own,"_ Tommy told her.

"_Yeah,"_ Kim smiled watching the open interaction between Molly and her student. "_Maybe I should."_


	2. Chapter 2

"So," Kim grinned plopping herself down on Molly's couch, "tell me- tell me everything!"

Molly squealed with joy and embraced Kimberly. "I've missed you guys so much!"

"We've missed seeing you too." She reached a hand out and gingerly checked Molly's face for traces of bruises or scars.

"Oh, Kim, why did you all leave me? It was so scary! I looked for every kind of job imaginable- and they said I was either overqualified or under qualified because I had a degree and was a teacher. Even though I'd worked these kinds of jobs before, I wasn't qualified to do them now."

"What kinds of jobs?"  
"Receptionists, office assistants, office managers."

"Wait, because you have a degree you're not qualified to answer phones and type?"

Molly nodded. "Exactly right."

Kim made a scoffing sound. "That's insane!"

"No kidding."

"Oh my gosh!" She exclaimed. "So, then what happened?"

"Well, I couldn't get a job, so I couldn't pay rent. I called the apartment manager to let them know that I might be behind on the rent for a week or two and-"

"And what did they say?"

"They evicted me."

Kim's mouth dropped open. "But your rent wasn't even due yet!"

"No, I was doing them a curtesy. Trying to be nice."

"And you get evicted for it."

"I always get kicked in the ass when I try to do the right thing or be nice," she grumbled. "Bet that wouldn't happen to the Power Rangers. And in the end they didn't evict me because I managed to scrap up the cash for rent."

"Good," she smiled, " and actually we get kicked in the ass a lot when trying to do nice things. Like, saving the world?"

Molly laughed with her. "Oh yeah. I forgot."

So then I finally realized I really had to apply for teaching jobs. Couldn't get any. Then I applied for subbing jobs- couldn't get any either."

"And during this, this is when you'd first opened your studio, right?"

"Yeah. That and wondering why you guys had abandoned me.'

"Yeah." Kim looked sideways, hoping Molly wouldn't press that issue. So instead, she asked,

"How many kids did you start with?"

"Three."

Kim bit her lower lip in sympathy.

"Then it was five. Then it was ten. If it hadn't been for that little bit of money, I wouldn't have had anything at all. And let me tell you it was hard trying to be enthusiastic for the kids when my whole world was callapsing."

She nodded.

"So then in December I finally start getting subbing jobs. So I worked 8 hours a day, then I worked my part time job, and then I worked at the studio, then I came home and did my business owner jobs."

"How many hours was that?"

"Usually between 16 and 20."

"Oh my god. Molly!"

"And it's still that.

"How many hours of sleep do you get?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes not any, sometimes four, or if I'm lucky six."

"But you're being physically active when you teach dance- how can you do that with such little sleep? Not to mention being physically and emotionally exhausted after teaching school all day?"

"I told you- the studio suffers, and I suffer. I'm doing my absolute best to keep things together, but it's not enough."

How many students do you have now?" She was afraid to hear the answer.

"Thirteen. But only ten will be in the recital, so it's basically like I have ten."

Kim sighed. "That's it! There's no excuse for this!"

Molly stood up and put her hands on her hips, laughing. "So what are you gonna do about it?"

Kim smiled. "You'll see. I'll do my best, anyway."

She stood up about to teleport away, when Molly asked, "So why did you guys leave me??"

Kim's mouth dropped open. "Um," she bit her lip and twisted a strand of hair, "Uh, well…." She sighed and looked worried. "I better go, Moll."

And with that, Kimberly Hart was gone.

Molly shook her head and paced the room. "As if I don't have enough things going on? Now she's keeping things from me?"

She sat back down. "If she is, that means she knows something, and her knowing something is as good as everyone knowing it so- I just have to find a ranger who will talk."

She lay back on the couch thinking. "Now, who can I get to talk?"

Then she sat up with a grin. "Billy." She giggled and her smiled widened.

"Oh, Biiiiiilly." She called to the empty apartment. "Come 'here! I wanna talk to you."

She smiled giggling, not surprised or too disappointed that he didn't just appear at her bidding.

Molly sighed aloud then rose up and made her way to the kitchen. It wasn't as though she had a lot of time to spare. It was nearly time to go to bed. Which meant a small quick supper.

"Molly."

She turned in surprise hearing Billy's voice behind her.

"How'd you get here?" She asked.

Billy shrugged. "The usual way."

"Oh."

It's funny, I was just thinking about you."

Billy smiled, seeming genuinely please. "Were you?"

Yeah." She grabbed a banana and tossed one backward to him.

She swung up to the counter top and sat on it while she opened the banana. "I have a question that I need answered."

Billy bobbed his head. "I would be happy to help, if I could."

"Kim is evading me."

"Evading you? I'm not sure I know what you mean, Molly."

She chewed a bite then swallowed before answering, "I know you know what the word evade means. What I mean is, I asked her a question and she wouldn't answer it. What I want to know is why did you all want to leave me so badly? You vanished just when I needed you."

"Oh, we didn't want to leave-"

"A ha!" She jumped off the counter top and pointed to him. "So you're saying it wasn't your choice to leave?"

"Uh, I uh, well what I meant to say was"

Molly smiled slyly at him. "Thanks Billy!" She turned away from him giggling. "That big floating head you call your boss has a lot of explaining to do."

But when she turned back around Billy was gone.


End file.
